IMPHAL, April 7: Manipur Border Area Development Society, (Partner NGO of NERCORMP) was discontinued after a thorough investigation and recommendation made by a monitoring team of NERCORMP Head office Shillong comprising Dir (M&E), Dir (Fin) and PM Ukhrul, said NERCORMP Chandel project Manager Santala E Ronglo reacting to allegations made by MBADS.
A statement of the project manager said direction to terminate the PNGO was conveyed to the District Office through an official letter dated December 23, 2015.
The Dist. Office only complied with the order of the Head office, it said adding that the decision to discontinue MBADS as partner NGO of NERCORMP was taken by the Managing Director of NERCORMP after verifying valid documents and establishment of facts and it is not baseless or hollow.
The Project Manager has no reasons to conspire against MBADS, it said.
It is true that the District office reported to the Head office of illegal collection of money by MBADS from the communities (NaRMGs) in complete violation of the MoU, it said adding that it is duty bound for the Dist. Office to report to the Head Office
Further according to the statement, the NGO was contracted to carry out facilitation works including conduct of the PRA exercises and was found out that the NGO had not carried out PRA in the 16 villages by the District Monitoring Team in the month of September 2015.
It said the PNGO failed to facilitate submission of The AWPB of the 16 villages and other villages for the year 2014-15 to district office which hampered and delayed compilation of District AWPB.
The order dated March 16, 2015 which was mentioned in the allegations by MBADS, was the fund release letter, which stated clearly the amount of funds released and the type activities to implement, it said.
The NGO failed to inform the 16 villages under it about the fund release, it said.
The 16 villages were not aware of how much funds were deposited in their accounts and for what activities these funds were provided, it claimed.
To the utter shock of the District monitoring team, it was found out that all the books of accounts of the villages were under the custody of MBADS since May 2015, it continued.
Our explanation call letter issued to MBADS dated September 24, 2015 and their reply letter dated September 30, 2015 should be self-explanatory, it said.
The DST Monitoring Team instructed the villagers to take back all books of accounts from MBADS and start writing the books of accounts to record their activities like construction of IVR or plantations, it said and added that the MBADS wants to misinterpret such instructions as threat to the communities as it was against their scheme to continue to keep the passbooks and cash books so that they can force the communities to give them the money meant for the villagers.
The District team never imposed any activities on any of the 16 villages as charged by MBADS, it said.
As regards to the charges of centralized procurement, the DST through its office reply dated July 16, 2015 issued to MBADS stated clearly that District Office does not authorized any individuals or firm for supply of seeds, it said.
It would be a ridiculous thing for anyone who is familiar with the functioning of NERCORMP that Project Manager can procure seeds herself through centralized procurement process and distribute the seeds herself, it added. Such accusation shows how desperate MBADS is. It is for the information of all interested persons or organizations in Chandel that NERCORMP III operates in Moreh, Khengjoy, Chakpikarong and Chandel Blocks, and the total villages identified are (449+230=679) benefitting 14800 (approximately) target households after repeated verification and authentication of the data according to NERCORMP norms, it said.
The desired fund of the district was not released from the Shillong head office citing slow progress of Project in the District even though the District Office made requisitions according to AWPB 2015-16 whereas other districts struggling equally or more were given much more, it added.
Those who are well acquainted with NERCORMP Chandel will know the reasons of slow progress of the Project and how hard the Project team and partner NGOs worked to ground the Project, it said.
When the Project is finally grounded, external factors like threat to the office for discontinuation of MBADS accentuated by the involvement of Hb. Rungkhel Anal Kilosoner NSCN (IM) created an environment of apprehension and insecurity for the staff of NERCORMP, it added.
In spite of various hiccups due to various interferences, multi ethnicity, difficult terrains and social disturbances like frequent bandhs, etc, the project has been able to stabilize and establish rapport with the stakeholders (NGOs, District Administration, etc.) and pull-off with the support of communities, it said.
The Project team and the Partner NGOs have seen satisfactory success stories and progress in all the other project areas.
The statement made by MBADS and Hb. Rungkhel Anal Kilonser NSCN (IM) is disappointing and clearly showed their intention to derail the project by misguiding the public, it claimed.
From the two press releases made by them, one can easily see and understand the desperation to hoodwink the people of Chandel by digressing from the established fact that MBADS had violated the MoU by taking money from the poor communities, it said.
It is even more unfortunate to observe that a person of the stature of Mr.Hb. Rungkhel belonging to an Organisation like NSCN (IM) supporting the act of MBADS (who was terminated on the directive of NERCORMP Head Office) by heaping baseless allegations on Project Manager, it said.